Archinect - News

World's largest annual ice festival transforms north-eastern China

2019-01-09T13:59:00-05:00

Spanning over 600,000 square meters and including more than 100 structures, the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival is one of the world's largest ice festivals. Running from January 5th through February, builders use over 8 million cubic feet of ice and snow to build illuminated ice castles and other installations. Located in the city of Harbin in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, the festival attracts millions of visitors annually. Attractions range from traditional Chinese architecture to Gothic-inspired structures made with blocks of ice from the frozen Songhua River. Take a look below.

Best snow + ice architecture, 2016 edition

2016-01-27T14:35:00-05:00

In China each year, the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival features both buildings and sculptures constructed entirely of ice and snow, which are augmented with nighttime illumination. Here are a few highlights from this year's festival:

China doesn't have a lockdown on spectacular ice and snow architecture. The Pyotr Yeropkin-designed 20 meter tall by 50 meter wide Russian Ice Palace, which has been reconstructed every year since 2005 (although the design dates back to 1740) in St. Petersburg, has interior spaces with custom ice furniture:

Quebec's Hotel de Glace offers a functional, if chilly, opportunity to experience ice and snow architecture. Each year, guests can stay inside one of its 44 rooms (some of which come with seemingly oxymoronic amenities, like a fireplace):

Lastly, there is the SnowCastle of Kemi by the Gulf of Bothnia in Finland, which is constructed annually and features an accompanying SnowRestaurant, SnowChapel, and SnowHotel. The SnowCastle's official website ...

Ghost town: searching for remnants of Russia in the Chinese city of Harbin

2014-08-25T15:07:00-04:00

It is not rare for a civilisation to abruptly falter, give way and fold into a new one. This insight seems obvious in the territories of the former Soviet Union — a universe transformed into a memory overnight. [...] that a city turned ruin continues to be inhabited, that the collapsing buildings and boulevards stained by a thousand footsteps, after the apocalypse, host new forms of human life, new memories. Harbin, in the far north-east of China, used to be a very Russian metropolis.

An enormous ice castle worthy of China’s biggest bank

2013-12-27T13:55:00-05:00

This ice castle—or, ice bank fortress—is perhaps the most spectacular entrant in the 30th annual International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin. A sign hanging outside the sculpture suggests it’s intended to look like a branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the nation’s biggest bank.